Call of Duty: Elite for Black Ops 2 will be free, Season Pass separate

Activision has made the brilliant move of separating Call of Duty: Elite from the premium service Season Pass style of subscription, making all of the Elite services completely free of charge. In addition, the publisher has added new features including player and clan headquarters, Call of Duty: Elite TV and Zombies leaderboards.

Activision CEO John Hischberg stated that he learned from Elite’s initial bad press, in which gamers thought that they would be paying for online multiplayer and other Elite features, when the features were already free to begin with - and the only premium charge came from what was essentially a Season Pass for the Modern Warfare 3 downloadable content.

According to Hischberg, ”We’ve learned a lot in our first year of Call of Duty Elite, and we’re very proud that we over delivered on our commitment of playable content to our premium members. What we have realized is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are things that would further unite, engage and delight our player community. So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”

The premium Season Pass will include four major DLC packs which will cost 4000 Microsoft Points ($49.99 USD), which will be a discount for all 4 packs, which would normally cost $59.99 if all of them are bought.

For most Call of Duty players, the biggest bonus is the free Elite content, which will feature:

• Player HQ - Track Call of Duty: Black Ops II performance with rich game statistics, including enhanced match information such as heat maps and recent match data; track challenges and extensively modify your classes like never before using Treyarch’s new Pick 10 Create-a-Class system.

• Clan HQ - Join an existing clan or start your own, invite friends and then take part in Call of Duty: Black Ops II clan competitions with cool digital prizing.

• Zombies Support - For the millions of Zombies fans out there, now you can track your Zombies personal statistics and compare it to other players’ around the world.

• Call of Duty Elite TV - Launching with tablet support with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the new Call of Duty Elite TV will deliver a renewed community focus featuring developer tips and strategy programming, custom class overviews and more.

• Social Sharing and Notifications - With Call of Duty Elite’s new notification system, you can stay updated with what is going on in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, as well as communicate directly with your clan. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is due to be released on the 13th November 2012 for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii U.